All the good ones, anyway...

Although they have proved adept at repurposing old characters that might not have been so awesome the first time around.

I got that idea already the moment Bumblebee said "We're all going to die, aren't we?" in the pilot episode. He's got the same semi-rebelious attitude.

I heard that at some point the writers named him Hot Shot, but finally decided to go for Bumblebee instead. I say that's a good thing.

Bumblebee feels more like Cheetor mixed with Hotshot to me.

Rattrap, was respected a bit more than Bumblebee and not treated like a kid. He was trusted on all his missions and when Primal blew up, bam, he was instant commander for 3 episodes.

And Ratchet was originally a fembot Autobot medic named Red Alert. IIRC they changed Hot Shot and Red Alert to Ratchet and Bumblebee in anticipation of the success of the live action movie.

because Rhinox was offline Rattrap started out as a little turd IMO.

Never liked Rattrap myself...

I guess what I meant is Bumblebee is more like a kid on Animated than Rattrap has ever been....No let me stop. Animated BBB is like Hotshot+Rattrap+cheetor

I don't really see Rattrap in Animated Bumblebee...

actually, to me Bumblebee seems like his own character, despite the character type he belongs to. He's got more to him than just "ooh look I'm fast" or whatever. I think the major difference between himself and other "hot shot" types is that Bumblebee's actually a relatively sensible, nice guy. And he's not always doing stupid sh*t and pwning himself.

Yeah, other than being a smart-ass (to a degree) I don't see much of Rattrap in Bumblebee.

Rattrap = grizzled old veteran who's seen enough to know better (hence his reluctance to join/start fights)

Bumblebee = eager young recruit ready to prove himself.

Keep in mind that these guys aren't soldiers... Bumblebee and the rest of them were/are civilians, with Prime being the only one who's had serious military training (Ratchet has experience in war, but he was a medic). My sense is that Bumblebee isn't all that eager to get in a firefight.

Recruit was the wrong word, I guess. Maybe I should have said Bumblebee was an eager young bot who is eager to prove that he is as capable as the rest of his more mature crew.

And I don't know about firefights, but except for the "monster" episode I don't remember seeing Bumblebee shying away from a challenge. Sure seems like he does a lot of "rushing headlong into the fray" and not listening to Prime's orders of the wait-and-strategery variety.

Well... I wouldn't want to say that he's always like this or like that. I think he's definitely impulsive, but not always. He doesn't like being looked down upon, but he's not always eager to prove himself either, if it involves him possibly getting killed. Nevertheless, he's a good enough guy to do what's right if necessary. He's just a well-rounded character IMO...

I understood this thread as being about Animated's effect on people's G1 nostalgia - I don't recall seeing anything in the initial post exclusively restricting it to the G1 cartoon.

People are fans of G1 in different ways, because G1 had so many different forms. I started getting into Transformers through the toys first, then the comics, then the cartoon, then books etc etc. I'm predominantly a fan of the toys, but when it comes to G1 continuity, I'm predominantly a fan of the comics. Other people are predominantly fans of the G1 cartoon when it comes to canon, and that's fine too.

But because the comics have always been my preferred G1 canon, if I want to talk about my G1 nostalgia, then that's what I'm going to refer to. I can't really talk about Animated's effect on my G1 cartoon nostalgia, because I honestly don't have that much nostalgia for the G1 cartoon.

I'm not putting others down for having their nostalgia being more dominant in other G1 mediums - but everyone here has really been speaking from their own personal G1 nostalgia, and that's what I've done. It's just that my G1 nostalgia is heavily dominated by the Marvel comics. Although I much greatly prefer the comics over the cartoon - and in my personal opinion, the G1 comics were better than the cartoon - that's just my opinion.

In reality one isn't better or worse than the other. We all have our reasons for liking different TF mediums.

And I don't hate the cartoons, I just like the comics gooderer (sic).

Well put. That's all you had to say.

personally, I feel like (although I understand this is a new universe), these characters are filling the void of where the characters came from. that is how they fill the nostalgia.
primes history as we see it unfolding in animated is far superior to being changed from orion pax and BAM he's a great leader. experience wins.
bumblbee could easily be a younger version of g1 bb. etc. etc.

the exceptions are even better. for example in starscreams' case he's just a better version of g1's ideals. "solemn face...solemn face" is MORE like g1 ss than g1 was.
Don't even get me started on Megs. that punch to ss.

YES AGREE x A MILLION

Seconded, Thirded, Fourthed, Fifthed,.... Bazillioned.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT FOR THE EPIC WIN!!

ers to Orion Pax, but yeah character development is

Animated needs way more robots to steal my G1 nostalgia, but I enjoy every second of it.

Animated Prime is similar to Optimus Primal in terms of being unwillingly thrown into a war and being the leader of a team of non-combatants forced to become warriors. Although none of the Maximals were part of the military (that's Big Convoy's domain).

Having said that, I personally don't feel that Animated Prime is as good a character as Optimus Primal. Up till the last three episodes, TFA Prime didn't get much character development whereas Primal got character development up the woo-haa throughout BW and BM.

G1 cartoon Optimus Prime is a pretty one-dimensional caricature rather than a character (as many of the G1 cartoon TFs were) - primarily being the 'fallen Christ' messiah/saviour archetype: i.e. an infallible hero. And of course, flawless characters are boring characters. I can see why people are paying out on the whole Orion Pax origin story because from a character development POV it's as shallow as the transition from Hot Rod to Rodimus Prime (if not even more so). There basically is no real development from Orion Pax to Optimus Prime. As soon as Alpha Trion rebuilt Pax to Prime he became an entirely different character. It was as if Orion Pax had truly died and was replaced by Optimus Prime. Ditto Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime - when he became Rodimus Prime, all of a sudden the Matrix had magically changed Hot Rod from being an impulsive youth to becoming a matured leader. And whenever Rodimus Prime changed back to Hot Rod, he became that impulsive youth again. Lame!

Proper character development needs to be a logical progression/evolution. For example, Cheetor evolves from being...


^rash and impulsive kid too eager to prove himself


^more experienced but still a kid


Rattrap: "Oh joy... Cyber-puberty."

<---adult

As we watched Beast Wars and Beast Machines we can see the logical progression/evolution of the Cheetor character from cub to adult.

G1 cartoon Optimus Prime and Rodimus Prime didn't have this.

G1 comic Prime was a much better character who had his flaws. But really, TFA Prime feels so much more like an underdeveloped Optimus Primal than Optimus Prime.

I definitely think as we we progress, there will be more character development for Prime. There already is quite a bit- it was only the first season.

Goki, with all due respect, you're defeating your own point. your saying prime has no developement yet. then your showing character developement of cheetor across several seasons. let's wait till the show is a few seasons old before making those comparisons. compare tfa at this point to bw at this point in its story. I don't think the characters are underdeveloped in the least. to the contrary there are twice as many characters (counting humans)to develop and they are doing great.

I think Animated Prime's already had more development than Primal had at an equal point in BW.

I didn't see any character development in TFA Prime until "Megatron Rising" whereas Optimus Primal's character development - even just within season one, was gradually done throughout that series. I find that there's not enough character development in TFA and where there is, it's sporadic.

Megatron Rising comprised the 15th and 16th episodes. Primal had virtually no character development in the first 16 episodes of BW, keeping in mind he started as a more adept leader than Animated Prime from the get-go. He was in episode 17 who he was in episode 1.

Which is ghey BTW considering that Primal was supposed to be a scientist.

And Goki, are the pictures really necessary? You come off as incredibly condescending sometimes... like we don't know what Cheetor looks like.

Not to mention that pointing out that Cheetor grew as a character whenever he got a new toy to sell underscores how we're really talking about a 22 minute commercial...not exactly a strong way to back up the "so well written" point.

sorry - I was going by the adage of "a picture tells a thousand words" and I thought a couple of pics and quick references would be preferable to a 2500-word diatribe on the evolution of Cheetor. I am in the process of trying to make my posts smaller.

I don't think Goki is trying to be condescending. I think he likes to get his point across and doesn't want anything to be misconstrued, so he provides everyone with enough verbage to get his point across.

Goki,

You can't compare the character development that Cheetor or Primal received over FOUR SEASONS (or 3 seasons and one entirely different unrelated story for Lord Madhammer) to Animated Prime's 16 episodes.

And for what its worth, I also think that Prime feels like an underdeveloped Primal. But that's because we have all Optimus Primal's history and only a small part of Animated Prime's.

Yeah I think it's a bit early to be making any judgment calls on character development... and FYI I think Primal's character development in BW is much exaggerated. Okay, so he was supposed to be a scientist. But by the end of the first episode he was all like "AND LET IT BE CALLED 'BEAST WARS' RARRRRR" which is like a 27 on a 1 to 10 scale of gheyness BTW.

*hates you*



No, wait. That's the movie one.

RAARRR....classic

Same here.

Every single time the conflict was referred to as the Beast Wars was a 27 on the 1 to 10 scale of gheyness.

Not that BW season 2 isn't one of my favorite seasons of any TV series...

*sigh* So true.

That's one of the more forgettable moments of Beast Wars... that and the entire episode of "The Low Road"... *shudder* I'm sorry, but I never found it amusing that Rhinox could defeat the Predacons by farting on them. (-_-) That's the kind of humour that the Battlechargers (re: Beavis and Butthead) would find funny.

Cornholio!!

That's one of the best episode endings ever.

gotta agree... nothing wrong with a li'l fart joke in my Transformers mythos. THough i gotta say, the other one (with TM Cheetor) made me laugh a little harder.

"The low road" indeed

but I thought it was funny <_<

Actually I like stuff like that because it gives encyclopedic fans fits, as they try to figure out how robots can fart. (Artistic license = friend to all children.)

I did really like season 2 of BW, but part of me is still sad that the show abandoned the Vok storyline. It was all X-Files and stuff, in a good way. The G1 angle was definitely supreme fanwank, but I can't help feeling like we missed something as a result.

Blame Hasbro for canceling season 4.

Beast Wars is so nostalgic for me. It goes to be said that I may be a bit younger than al ot of you guys around here, but Beast Wars is what introduced me to the Transformers world. I remember my first figure too, Dinobot.

Because they were partially organic from the beginning. Seriously, embrace the plain truth of it.

I don't think that was the reason that the Vok storyline was abandoned.

Yeah, I'd say it pretty much was. Ever wondered why Season 3 felt so rushed half way in? It was because after DiTillio and Forward had already written the first half of Season 3, Hasbro contacted Mainframe Entertainment and told them that it would be the final season for Beast Wars and to quickly wrap everything up. Now as we all know, DiTillio and Forward (especially DiTillio) are the kind of writers who enjoy "seeding" their stories with plot elements which will mature and develop as the series progresses. Because Hasbro cancelled the series when Season 3 was already half written, the writers had to really quickly tie up as many loose ends as they could given limited time. Unfortunately they weren't able to tie up everything, and the Vok story was something that ended up suffering (although they did try to elaborate more on the Vok with Tigerhawk). DiTillio has stated that he had intended to introduce the Vok as being an evolution of the Swarm from Generation 2; during the time between G2 and BW the Swarm had evolved into the Vok.

And this wasn't the first time that Hasbro had done this. The ending of both the G1 cartoon and comics were both rushed. The pilot for Season for (The Rebirth) was original slated to be a five-parter, which David Wise originally wrote it as. Hasbro then contacted Sunbow and told them that it was to be culled down to a three-parter and specified which toys they wanted introduced within the first episode. Wise freaked out and had to chop around and re-write his original treatment from a 5-parter down to a 3-parter with the bulk of that year's toyline introduced in the first ep. That's why The Rebirth story pretty much sucks arse and the first ep just feels like an animated toy commercial.

Four years later Hasbro did the same thing with the G1 comics. After the epic that was US#75 (UK#319-322) Hasbro contacted Marvel Comics and told them that Transformers was to be cancelled. That's why issues US#76-80 (UK#323-332) feels so rushed. All those Transformers that were reincarnated with Nucleon were destined to become Action Masters, but due to the chop from Hasbro, only Grimlock and Optimus Prime were reincarnated as Action Masters. And even Simon Furman was frustrated at having to bring Optimus Prime back to life after just having killed him (Powermaster Prime) off in US#75!!

Then Hasbro did it again in Generation 2, although Marvel were given more advanced notice than in G1. That's why Furman created the character name Jhiaxus - as in "Gee, axe us!" as a sign of his frustration at Hasbro once again, giving Transformers the chop.

I'm not blaming Hasbro for cancelling the G1 and G2 comics (although at the time I was very upset) - G1 sales were faltering in 1991 and G2 just failed to resuscitate the franchise enough to justify continuing the G2 series beyond 12 issues - but I still don't know why they decided to cancel Beast Wars. The Beast Wars toyline and show was going really strong when Hasbro decided to can it. Incidentally this decision occurred shortly after Aaron Archer appeared on the scene - make of that what you will.

Wow...that was a thoroughly interesting and insightful post. Thank you.

What I meant is that there would have been no need for wrapping up anything quickly if the writers had not been diverted by the G1/Ark storyline.

I can't believe that any Transformers fan would complain about the G1/Ark storyline in Beast Wars.

I could, but I won't. That'd be going off track.

Pete's not complaining about the G1/Ark storyline as being a dislikable part of the story, but in terms of how the amount of attention spent on it meant that other sub-plots (like the Vok arc) were not wrapped up very well.

But at the time the writers were setting up the G1/Ark storyline they had no knowledge that Season 3 would be the final season. Had Hasbro given Forward and DiTillio more advanced notice about their intention to cancel Beast Wars, then they might have done a better job with juggling the various story arcs - but they'd already finished writing the first half of Season 3 before Hasbro told Mainframe that this would be the final series. So they literally had just 6 or 7 episodes to wrap up as much of Beast Wars as they could!

That's why the 2nd half of Season 3 feels rushed and why loose ends weren't tied up as neatly as one would like.

And as I mentioned before, we saw the same thing happening at the end of G1 (US cartoon and comics) and G2.

An example of how a story can be better written when more advanced notice is given to writers is Transformers Zone - Takara specifically told the writer (I think it was Kaneda Masumi) to write it as a stand-alone pilot episode, unlike the pilots for Headmasters, Masterforce and Victory. By time the Zone pilot was completed, Takara decided not to go ahead and produce it as a series and released the pilot as a direct to video OVA. Now I'm not saying that Zone is the pinnacle of literary story telling epics - it's not - and there are some elements to the story which really p!ssed off Japanese fans (although the animation is brilliant) - but the story's resolution is wrapped up well.

It completely pushed the Vok storyline aside. Which I felt was more original and interesting. Finding the Ark was cool, but after that point it totally took over the show. Fanwank is great and all, but tell your own story first. JMO

The Vok storyline was also linked to G2, which wasn't revealed in the show (but instead later revealed by Larry DiTillio online). Some G2 fanwankage would've been a nice change from all the G1 fappage.